My Practice in Context Project

Category Archives: Trieste

After almost a year from planning and researching, to living in Trieste for 3 months, to writing my documentation and giving a presentation, I have finally finished my Practice in Context project. Without a doubt, I’ve learnt loads and really enjoyed the process.

So this is just a post to say…. thank you to everyone who:

hosted me, gave me a bed, played music to or with me, taught me tunes, gave me advice, gave me contacts and put me in touch with people, fed me, clothed me, watered me, talked with me, gave me information, invited me, gave me music c.d’s and other resources, drove me around, taught me Italian and was patient enough to listen to me in Italian.

I could not have done this project without the amazing contributions from the citizens of Trieste and around!! There are so many people who fit into one or more of these categories, so thanks! It’s been a joy.

In other news my band, Four People have been invited to play at a festival in Lake Garda this Summer with a stage from from a folk music bar in London. So tour of Northern Italy 2014 is looking very hopeful!!

I’m re-performing my presentation again tomorrow for other students who are about to plan a project to see how its done and give some tips etc. How well I’ve fared in the module is yet to be seen – I think I’ll find out in a couple of weeks. Fingers crossed.

First of all, I think this post is about two months late. Since I returned from Italy I have been manically documenting my project for university deadlines. I made a book with photos, diagrams and c.d. and last week I gave a presentation. I made a theatre studio into an osmiza to make my presentation nice and informal. So it is only now that I’ve got around to updating my blog – apologies to my most dedicated fans!!

So a bit of context about this last venture in my trip: I briefly met Stefano Schiraldi at the Barcolando in October. He then contacted me through this blog and we began meeting informally to play music. He told me about this project he was working on, creating original music and songs for a theatre piece. He was writing for many different arrangements such as solos, group vocal pieces, accompaniments, so I we were able to try out various parts and develop the scores.

(performance flyer)

After a few of these meetings, quite unexpectedly, Stefano asked if I would like to join him and the theatre company in Milan. Of course I willingly accepted the offer and couldn’t quite believe my luck. So on Monday 25th November we drove to Milan to start rehearsing – the performance would premiere on the Thursday and ran for 4 nights and 1 night in Trieste the following week.

The company had only these three days to rehearse the piece pretty much from scratch so the rehearsals were quite tense at first because many things had to be achieved before opening night. As a result the music changed a lot, having to cut and paste sections here and there. Having to navigate the situation solely in Italian was… challenging. Not being familiar with the performance or cues was an added difficulty especially as there was little time to faff about/continuously ask people to repeat themselves! But luckily I soon caught on the the structure of the performance.

By the opening night Stefano and I were confident that the music would go well. We had developed a good rapport and communication over the rehearsals and his ruthlessness over accuracy and selection of the final performance material had paid off.

(Rossi 2013)

Dell’Umiliazione e della Vendetta (of humiliation and revenge) dealt with attitudes and violence towards women in Italy but, moreover, it celebrated womankind, femininity and girl power. It was a piece of Music Theatre devised by an all-female company.

(Rossi 2013)

In discussion with the director, Marcela Serli, I found out more about the devising processes. Although the piece was contemporary there were quite a few influences from traditional practices such as the Tarantella dance and Marina Abramovic’s Balkan Erotic Epic.

In short, it was a great opportunity to be able to work on and perform in this piece and I am reaaaally grateful to ATOPOS (the company) for letting me play and to Stefano for guiding me through! It was whirlwind of a week – I stayed in no less than 4 different people’s houses in various locations around Milan which was quite disorientating but also pretty exciting.

Overall it was heaps of fun and I am very happy to have been involved in such a quality piece of theatre.